NYT/AP: Money Fight Stalls AIDS Bill in Senate

[DeepModem Mom]

Money Fight Stalls AIDS Bill in Senate
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 26, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A bill that would shift millions of dollars for AIDS care to rural areas is being held up in the Senate by Democrats from California, New York and New Jersey, whose states would lose out.

The objections threaten to stall passage of the $2.1 billion Ryan White CARE Act before Congress wraps up work this week ahead of the Nov. 7 midterm elections.

The law, originally passed in 1990, sends money to state and local programs for the neediest patients. A rewrite that has passed House and Senate committees would funnel more money to rural and southern states where AIDS is spreading, but less money to larger states and urban areas that traditionally have been at the front line of the epidemic.

Republican leaders hoped to get the legislation through the full House and Senate this week, but Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer of New York, and Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey are all objecting....

***

Opponents in the House and Senate offered alternate legislation Tuesday that would extend the existing law for a year to allow more negotiations to take place. But the holdouts were getting pressure from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, top Democrat on the health committee, who supports the rewritten bill....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-AIDS.html

[w4rma]

1. Bah. Just pass it. Dems have let let much much worse things go by. (nt)

[xchrom]

2. there have already been cuts to ryan white that have

negatively impacted poor urban folk with hiv/aids.

there is already too much suffering for these folk.

ryan white needs MORE money period.